Somewhere in the Andes, in a nebulous border zone never claimed by any nation, is the last of the free cities. Candida is a blank on the map. Here there are dragons.

Kay travels across the Atlantic to Candida on business. She soon finds herself lost in an unfamiliar city without a job or a home. She's taken in by the oldest house in the city and put to work by its inscrutable chatelaine. She may have lost control of her life but she knows that Prospero is coming to open the hidden city to the outside world.

While she waits, she makes new contacts, allies, even friends: the exgunrunner, blinded by the light; the soldier-poet, loyal to dreams of the dead; the courier who wants to become a bird; and Xan – fascinating Xan – who may be all of Kay's dreams come true.

They all have stories of the city, its history and its powers. Some of them might even be true.

Here there are dragons!